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353 thoughts on “Open thread”

A new draft report from the Climate Change Authority has found that aiming for higher reduction targets than the piddly 5% both major parties want by 2020 will not impact economic growth. This is contrary to the garbage put forward by the deniers, who with a high degree of alarmism claim reducing emissions will send everyone broke and bankrupt the country. The report can be downloaded here. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-30/climate-change-authority-emissions-trading-scheme/5057258

Not only that John, they’ve already been compensated in excess of the cost that the carbon price has on the lower income brackets. That the Coalitions lied – and continues to lie – about the alleged impost on the poor is disgraceful, but too many Australians are happy to swallow this propaganda.

Further, it’s not the carbon price that’s jacking up the cost of electricity, as the link here (and that I posted yesterday):

The price rises are occurring because the power companies are having to reinforce the infrastructure that they’ve allowed to deteriorate for too long, and the major reason that they need to beef up the infrastructure is to deal with peak power loads, and most ironically especially the ones that occur when everyone turns on their air conditioners in a heat wave…

Your faux concern for the poor is duly noted. Given that you are not basing your economic alarm on any independent analyses, I’ll just assume you are basing it on your ideological assumptions. You certainly haven’t read the CCA report.

“The Authority’s analysis shows that Australia can achieve a 15 or 25 per cent reduction target while national income and the economy continue to grow. Under the current legislation, and with the minimum 5 per cent target, Gross National Income (GNI) per person is projected to grow by an average of 0.80 per cent annually over the period to 2020. GNI per person is projected to grow by an average of 0.78 per cent with a 15 per cent target, and by 0.76 per cent with a 25 per cent target. In dollar terms, GNI per person is projected to grow from about $62 350 in 2012 to about $66 450 in 2020 with a 5 per cent target; $66 350 with a 15 per cent target; or $66 250 with a 25 per cent target
(all in real terms). This means GNI per person would reach the same level as the 5 per cent target ($66 450) less than three months later if Australia adopted a 15 per cent target; or five months later if Australia adopted a 25 per cent target.”

And for costs of generation and supply of renewables, here’s a few of dozens of papers all saying the same thing….

Finally, as we shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, perhaps the money we save from subsidies, could be put to use providing training and employment opportunities for the poor people you pretend to be concerned about. After all, we are talking about $4-5 billion annually. That could certainly go a long way.

I don’t expect you to actually defy your wilful ignorance and read any of the references I provided so I shall await your next moronic comment for confirmation.

If we burned all the available fossil fuel the earth would be uninhabitable for humans and upwards of half the higher taxa that currently live on the planet.

And the alternatives then wouldn’t be much different to what we can come up with now, except that they will have been implemented later than need be – contrary to what some thermodynamically-illiterate futurists believe there are no miraculous inexhaustible sources of energy hiding underneath the Higgs boson.

Most babies are weaned and toilet-trained at between 12 and 18 months. Western countries have been vigorously sucking on the fossil-fuel tit and shitting in their collective nappies for around a century and a half. Your proposal to wait another four hundred years would be like waiting until the baby is five or six years old before thinking about unclenching his teeth from him mother’s bleeding nipple and showing him how not to poop his pants.

And that’s quite aside from the fact that your unethical stance is to let a future generation deal with the end of fossil energy. What a repugnant position to take.

If we rationed our fossil energy now there’d be reserves left for thousands of years of use, allowing the planet to absorb it in a manageable geological time-frame, and leaving material for feedstock for the many organic chemistry-based industries on which we’ve become unavoidably reliant.

But J Giddeon’s attitude is “no, let’s just pig out on the finite resource now, and stuff the generations to come after”. This is pretty much the preoperational stage in Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Congratulations J Giddeon, you have the psychological development of a 2-4 year old.

Calm down folks. I wasn’t for a moment suggesting that we could should or would continue to rely on FF for 400yrs. Bernard talked about the exhaustion of FF reserves and I was simply pointing out that that is way in the future.

In truth, as anyone who studies Julian Simon knows, we’ll never run out of FF because we will have moved onto other energy sources long be fore we get close to exhausting our supply. We should also note that that supply is increasing with things like fracking.

As I’ve said often here, current technology will become competitive with FF this century and probably within two or three decades. And who knows what new technology will pop up. Thorium still looks promising. Once it is as cheap or cheaper to get energy from sources other than FF, the use of FF will plummet. So we won’t be using FF for 400 yrs, although resource levels would permit it.

So just take a bex and a good lie down.

But just to get your blood pressure up again, what if oil is abiotic. Then we could use it forever.

Everytime this retarded troll posts, it’s like he just can’t help showing his true colours. That is, he’s an utter arsehole who greedily believes any right-wing crap.

Julian Simon was a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Who is the Cato Institute? The American version of the IPA, a clone of Heartland. Other fellows include climate zombies like Patrick Michaels and S. Fred Singer.

Nuclear could just as easily be implemented now as in the future (and probably more easily so as the population is currently ‘only’ 7 billion) and there is still a surfeit on fossil energy to do all the heavy infrastructure work that is difficult with electricity. So why is it not being rolled out widely in place of fossil energy?

Fusion is impractical. Pure and simple. I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but it will require such a high level of continuing ultra-sophisticated technological capacity that it will be vulnerable to the fatal flaws of any complex system that is metastable – and technological human society, based as it is on piling all the sand in one corner of the sandbox, is most definitely only metastable at best.

And on your retreat to having centuries of gas and coal – you’re just as abominable as J Giddeon. All you’re doing is transferring the problem to future generations, and screwing up their environment to boot. Self-indulgent, unethical bilge.

He doesn’t acknowledge there is a problem and is yet another who thinks that the laws of physics dont apply. I suspect his final comment was meant to attract a response. He is a troll through and through and its time for mike to kick him to the curb. He wont be missed and the only people likely to be upset will be other deniers and even then it will be quickly forgotten.

Bernard J You asked the question: “How are solar and wind going to be backed-up when fossil fuels are exhausted?” and I gave you an honest answer. The US does have centuries worth of reserves. Not much debate about it. What will happen 100 or 200 years in the future is anyone’s guess. Maybe fusion will be a reality by then or maybe some new yet to be discovered technology. I’m certainly not going to worry about how people that far in the future are going to back up their renewable energy sources if they even need to – maybe they’ll have much more sophisticated battery backup systems by then.

Yes fusion needs a lot of work and is probably many decades away from practical use. That doesn’t mean it never will be a viable alternative. Scientists certainly think it is. Should we believe them? Or should we deny their claims?

Bill, we don’t give a rat’s arse what a retarded climate zombie like you picks out of the toilet and presents as an opinion. Stop being an obsessive troll, and go back to whatever hick town trailer trash swamp hole that you crawled out of. Just go to WUWT where all your other crazy loony friends are waiting for you. You are the most pathetic, worthless lump of shit that I have ever encountered. Only Gidiot comes close.

I came across this site a few weeks back, and I straight away noticed your sorry arse, whinging about Facebook. Post after post, was you and your meaningless bullshit, and I thought, who the hell is this dumb fucker, and why is he being such an arsehole, trolling everyone. Why all the bigotry? Why is this prick trying to bore everyone to death? I cannot stand trolls, they are full of arrogance, spite and hate.

So, tell me, why are you such a bigoted, egotistical fuckwit?
Why are you trying to ruin the conversation here, again?

I mention Julian Simon, one of the great minds of the late 20th century, whose greatest sin was to be constantly proving the doomsayers wrong and the response is to dash off, find that he did some work for some unapproved group and from that decide that he should be ignored.

And in the next breathe you’ll be telling each other how much smarter you are compared to the climate zombies.

A little understanding of Simon would be of value to you all. Lomborg’s investigation of the climate started when he decided to gather the numbers to prove Simon wrong. It was from that research by he and his students that he came to realise that, not only was Simon right, but most of what we were told about the environment was unsupported by the numbers.

Bernard J “Nuclear could just as easily be implemented now as in the future (and probably more easily so as the population is currently ‘only’ 7 billion) and there is still a surfeit on fossil energy to do all the heavy infrastructure work that is difficult with electricity. So why is it not being rolled out widely in place of fossil energy?”

I think you know the answer especially after Fukushima. Fear. Even though the design deficiencies of Chernobyl are obvious and well known that disaster is still used by the Greenies to help keep nuclear power undesirable by the public. Modern reactor designs are simpler and safer than the ones at Fukushima but of course the public doesn’t know that. They think all nuclear is the same. I’m hopeful that new reactor designs will prove safe and economical. Here in the US the issue is waste fuel but there are solutions to that too – except we don’t want to embrace them for fear that the waste will be turned into fuel for weapons.

The other thing keeping nuclear from being popular is the cost. Not just the high cost of a new nuclear plant but the low cost of fossil fuels.

I did have to laugh at your comment about the subsidies. Are you really not aware that most, if not all, renewable energy isn’t feasible without massive subsidies? People wouldn’t be installing solar panels on their roofs without the tax breaks and subsidies that make it attractive. Large solar and wind plants would never get financing without subsidies. Why do you ignore those subsidies and focus on FF?

I didn’t make any comments about subsidies. Please ensure that you have your facts correct.

However, if you want to talk about subsidies in the context of renewables, it’s important to note that the subsidies are necessary because fossil fuels have the major share of the market and renewables require the subsidies only to get to a sufficient share such that economies of scale kick in, Once that’s achieved (and it’s already occurring for many forms) then subsidies are no longer required.

On the other hand fossil fuels and nukes are receiving ongoing subsidies long after they’ve co-opted significant market share, and this amount to nothing more than upper-class corporate welfare. It’s ironic that you say:

The other thing keeping nuclear from being popular is the cost. Not just the high cost of a new nuclear plant but the low cost of fossil fuels.

because one could say the same thing about renewables – except in their case if fossil fuels weren’t a protected industry there would be no significant cost benefit relative to renewables. If renewables were given a level playing field in terms of the relative amounts and timings of subsidies they’d be decades further advanced than they are now, and the fossil fuel industry would be ceding a huge chunk of the energy market.

On the matter of fear of nukes, if events such as Chernobyl and Fukushima are causing antipathy to its adoption then it is because these events are empirical displays of one of the costs of nuclear energy. These should not be externalised, and hence the cost and the damage resulting from accidents are integral to its competitiveness. If the latest generation does not have these issues then they should be able to be implemented over the next decade or several, and not in 400 years time, so the insistence on business as usual for the next 400 years still falls flat on its face.

I see a lot of waving of arms coming from your corner, but little comment based on comprehensive fact.

A boolean search of google for “150 great minds of the 1990’s” comes up with……wait for it……drumroll……………………………….. zilch.

Ahhh the dangers of using dodgy secondary sources from adjunct fellows. Please find for me Fortune magazine’s 150 great minds of the 1990’s list for me. It should make interesting reading….if it even exists.

Bernard J I apologize for my mistake about the subsidies. It was uki that said it not you:

“Finally, as we shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, perhaps the money we save from subsidies, could be put to use providing training and employment opportunities for the poor people you pretend to be concerned about. After all, we are talking about $4-5 billion annually. That could certainly go a long way”

I completely disagree with your statement about renewables being cost effective if not for the subsidies for fossil fuels. That statement completely ignores the fact that all renewables require backup generation because they are not reliable. You can’t depend on only solar power and then not have electricity at night or when it’s extremely cloudy. You can’t rely on wind power and then have little or no electricity when the wind doesn’t blow. The only renewable which is relatively constant is hydro which is why it supplies about 65% of Australia’s renewable energy today.

Sure cost of solar is coming down to the point where it becomes competitive. But it still doesn’t supply power 24/7. It never will obviously. Some large solar plants using technology such as molten salt are getting close. But that’s about it.

“A boolean search of google for “150 great minds of the 1990′s” comes up with……wait for it……drumroll……………………………….. zilch.”

except the quote said 1990s not 1990’s. Do the search properly and you’ll get 40 results in .22 seconds although if your computer is like its master it might take a lot longer.

You really are hilarious. You’re so full of yourself that you make these announcements that seek to make a big deal of what you think is a discovered error, and then you end up with foot-in-mouth disease. Just like your unequivocable error where, rather than just point out what you thought was my mistake, you made a big deal about it by offer to lend me a dictionary etc. You’re quite the funny man.
A denialist plant to make the group look even more kooky?

As to the actual list, it was in the March 1990 issue and isn’t digitalised. I recall seeing it in, I think, “The skeptical Environmentalist” but can’t recall too many of the names.

Uh oh! You are absolutely right Gidiot. I left out that pesky little ‘. My bad.

This time however, I went to the trouble of actually clicking through all 40 results. Did you? It seems they all quote the same idiotic “paper” in your original link. So we are back to where we started. Did Fortune magazine actually have a list and even if they did, is a rightwing free market ideological rag’s list really worth anything? What criteria did they use to make that assessment? Regardless, the uneducated opinions you link to are just that, uneducated opinions and aren’t much chop.

Now, let’s talk about your inability to differentiate between dasyurids and daisies shall we? Actually, don’t bother, I sense that your endless repetition of countless denier memes may see you kicked to the curb soon so it’s been a pleasure, and I am a masochist.

Its not that you missed the “‘” , we’re used to you screwing up. Its that you make a big deal of pointing out what you think is an error.
Then, true to form, you get all huffy when you fall flat on your face.
The comment about Simon was a mere aside and it is you making it out to be bigger than it was. Simon isn’t revered because of awards like this, He is revered because he was so prescient and so often shown to be correct and because he so often made fools of the doomsayers.

I acknowledge my minor errors but you come here and quote Anthony Watts, idolise idiots and trot out denier canards one after the other. It’s no wonder you want to focus on two typos to avoid justifying your obvious lunacy. You do realise that in order for your position to be true, you have to admit to conspiracy ideation and reject the laws of physics?

While the government shutdown resulted in a huge drop in popularity overall for the Tea Party the members involved in creating the shutdown saw a surge in popularity among their supporters.

Unfortunately here in the US we’ve lost the middle. Politics, particularly on the national level, have become completely polarized with little possibility or desire for compromise. I don’t see it changing any time soon unfortunately.

I completely disagree with your statement about renewables being cost effective if not for the subsidies for fossil fuels.

You’ve distorted the meaning of my statement.

The key part was:

Once [appreciable market share is] achieved (and it’s already occurring for many forms) then subsidies are no longer required.

Firstly, in my part of the world it is already cheaper to set up solar than to connect to the grid. My neighbours did it a decade and a half ago wihtout subsidy (and even then, with the less-sophisticted technology of the time, it was cheaper than connecting) and I’m in the throes of doing it now. And although we’re rural this isn’t in some remote wilderness – there’s a power line across the road from my property.

So – as I said – in many contexts solar (and wind, and microhydro, and geothermal) is already competitive with fossil fuel in terms of the unit cost of electricity. No subsidy required. Simple fact.

Further, the baseload issue is a non-issue in most of these contexts. Domestic use is fairly easily covered by battery storage, and even in places where back-up generation is required once batteries are drained the actual unit cost for the power is still less than going with 100% fossil fuel, and emissions are still reduced. Again, simple fact.

Your point applies more to urban situations, but then we start to get back to my original point. If renewable energy had been juiced up with subsidies as much as fossil energy has been since the beginning of the 20th century, its development would be decades more advanced, and the combination of distributed energy grids and the nurtured development of industrial-scale solutions such as molten salt, compressed air and pumped-storage hydroelectricity would have brought the matter to the stage where it would likely be competitive now without much further subsidy.

And even if some more subsidy was required into the near future under that scenario, so what? The financial benefits over the long term would accrue to an overall greater extent, and we’d have a better environment to boot. The only people who would have greatly missed out would be those who make profits from burning fossil carbon.

Bill, in this country back at the start of the 1990s, governments started selling off public energy infrastructure, saying it was better managed privately and that costs to the public would be lower under such an arrangement.

History showed that to be bullshit of the first order. Charges rose ahead of inflation ever since. Concern trolling alarmism like yours is dead before you even type it. Please desist.

If…big ‘if’..we can avoid bullshit [which is now normalised in political circles] like the inter-generational deceit I noted, we can proceed with an informed, empowered public. We have to be honest about the true costs and unintended consequences of maintaining and defending the status quo as well as the costs of change

Our problems are mainly to do with the ‘art’ of politics: perception management. institutional deceit, ignoring best advice, spreading disinformation, lies, misdirections and facetious infotainment aimed at short term political positioning. Wanna privatise? Stop lying about your motives and the projected results: make a case based on honesty….

If people are going to scream about the cost of renewables and the pound of flesh demanded by private venture, tell them what the alternative really costs and tell them that business’ heroic myths are self-serving. Assert the primacy of the community need over individual actors no matter how powerful. Defend the existence and indispensibility of objective knowledge. Stop suppressing informed economic voices by crowding them out with alarmist one-sided accounting, for a start.

Bill, the public get blamed for the failings of the professional communicators. Very convenient. The public are too technically illiterate or busy to bother with the details, apparently. So we’ll reduce it to Great Big Tax, stop the boats, Obamacare, etc.

A bigger factor is that in the worshiping of all things business and entrepreneurial culture, we move away from public to private ownership of ‘information’, themes, truths and ideas. All this becomes ‘in confidence’ intelligence to be screened and reduced by spin-doctors and publicists, part of the ‘great prospectus’ that parties offer their shareholder / voters…and we all know how limited prospecti are, and how limited shareholders rights are.

Business-owned parties like the Reps and the Liberals here think that their model of organisation and information management is superior to public participatory government’s. Crap. They are strangling our participation and withholding our information, ‘for our own good’ no doubt. They are getting their policy written for them by big business, with little scrutiny.

Vampires– Costello in Qld, David Murray perhaps for the coming FSI review, various made guys for the federal inquiry– are installed to ‘audit’ the government, eyeing the bits they want to carve off and lease back, steering the options away from real taxation review.

We are being f**ked over by business parasites for our own ‘good’, thanks to the bogus crises of public finances engineered around the world. Insurgents in suits, as Monbiot puts it a ‘superversion’ by those who have stolen the public narrative, stolen government, and public assets, and decreed that we are too technically illiterate or apathetic to participate.

Nick I don’t see a simple solution. Look around you. How many people do you know that are truly informed about serious issues? There’s so much willful ignorance today. People don’t watch the news they don’t care about what is really going on they focus on themselves. They only get involved when something impacts them. As soon as that issue is resolved they go back to their world and tune out the rest. They bury their heads in the iPhones and Xboxs and fail to care about anything that doesn’t directly impact them.

I’m sure it’s not that way everywhere but it certainly seems to be the modern world in the US and other technologically advanced countries. I’d be surprised if it’s not that way in Australia too or at least in the big cities. It’s difficult to make people care.

While I disagree about many things with posters here it’s not because I don’t care. I’ve been involved with environmental issues from the time I was in grade school. I look at the air and water pollution in countries like China and I’m appalled. It’s not sustainable and it’s already having a major impact on people’s health and their lives. Hopefully soon they’ll realize what we in the US learned 50 years ago about the need to protect the environment.

I just don’t see an easy way to make people care – whether it’s about the environment or social injustice or important political issues.

Of course if you disagree with my characterisation of your entertainingly misleading graphs you’re welcome to provide a detailed explanation about why they are actually scientifically valid. You know, like one would in a proessional peer-reviewed journal… or in a first year undergraduate course in basic statistics.

We got a live one here. Nothing like cherrypicking your start dates. Meanwhile the effects of global warming continue to be felt around the globe by both natural and unnatural ecosystems. I guess those tens of thousands of plant animal fungal and bacterial species undergoing dramatic rangeshifts online with warming are all in on the scam. If you have gotten tired of commenting at the denied dens you frequent,you should take a holiday, get some r and r rather than trolling here where you will only get well deserved ridicule and derision.

According to Gergis et al, temps in Aust in the mid 13th century were .09 C lower than now. So, at least in regards to Aust, creatures experiencing range shift are just shifting back to where they were then. Presumably.

Uki says the rangeshifts are to do with warming.
I say that if that’s the case then they are just shifting back to where they were when things were as warm as now.
I’m then told (with the obligatory ad homs) that lots of factors are involved other than warming.
I advise that yes I agree that warming is only one of many factors.
I’m then advised that of course the range shifts are due to warming.

Uki says the rangeshifts are to do with warming.
I say that if that’s the case then they are just shifting back to where they were when things were as warm as now.
I’m then told (with the obligatory ad homs) that lots of factors are involved other than warming.
I advise that yes I agree that warming is only one of many factors.
I’m then advised that of course the range shifts are due to warming.

I’m sure JB thinks this is all terribly logical. But alas

the warming is creating the range shifts , understand that?.

many range shifts can not take the same path as 700 years ago due to human habitation. understand that ?

moving south? but now there is a city in the way of allowing that to happen, understand that?,

with the warming they will need to travel further south or higher than 700 hundred years ago , what do they do when they run out of suitable habitat or run out of mountain to go up or the mountain altitude they need to go up to will not support them in any case.

the warming is forcing range shifts , the other factors will prevent that shift and drive many to extinction

“J Giddeon says:
November 3, 2013 at 10:30 pm
According to Gergis et al, temps in Aust in the mid 13th century were .09 C lower than now.”

You are complete and utter liar. You cannot be trusted, and you have proven it again. Typical of a climate zombie to misrepresent facts.

In the Gergis paper, it said
“The average reconstructed temperature anomaly in Australasia during A.D. 1238–1267, the warmest 30-year pre-instrumental period, is 0.09°C (±0.19°C) below 1961–1990 levels.”

Australia is now on average 0.5C hotter than 1961-1990 levels according to the BOM and CSIRO, and has reached 1C hotter.

And this has occurred with a few decades. This rapid change is what is driving the species movement to cooler areas.

Gidiot, what a nasty, lying, backward troll you are. Now you are trying to back peddle yourself out of your lie again. Trying to redefine what ‘now’ is. If you looked at the 2012 state of the Climate you would have seen that the average is 0.5C above what you call ‘now’ is, and the most recent now, the last 12 months is the hottest on record.

Summer 2012-2013 heat records
The last seven months have been exceptional in terms of heat records.
During this period, Australia registered the warmest September–March on record, the hottest summer on record, the hottest month on record and the hottest day on record.
A record was also set for the longest national scale heatwave.
It was also the hottest summer on record for Australian sea-surface temperatures. Sea surface temperatures in February were the hottest ever recorded in the region, while January was the warmest on record for that month.

“J Giddeon says:
November 3, 2013 at 10:30 pm
According to Gergis et al, temps in Aust in the mid 13th century were .09 C lower than now”

It was YOU who said that “According to Gergis et al, temps in Aust in the mid 13th century were .09 C lower than now” <- What is that word. NOW. Which means "at the present time or moment". Which is this year, 2013. Is that so hard to understand. Is your bubble of distortion keeping you from knowing what year this is? Hello, is there anyone there? It is 2013 now. Now is 2013. NOW = 2013. Man you are just plain stupid if you don't even know what this now means.

You see boys, this is how pathetically poor your case is, that you need to play these silly, childish semantic games to try to win even a minor point. Its also a reflection of how easily I run rings around you.

Its NOW 7:30pm where I live. Its colder NOW than it was in the mid 13th century.

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

so if i did not retract the accusation why did you ask if i did? trouble reading ?

Bernard J. says:
November 5, 2013 at 9:37 am
Bernard?

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

Newman is simply a f**kwit. There is no better description. He’s a wrecker dressed posing as a saviour. He is actively degrading Queensland’s public intellectual resources because of ideololigy and paranoia.

Damn you aren’t even smart enough to read what I wrote? I have never said that the arctic was the coldest in a century. Not once. I never even said the arctic was the coldest on record. What I have said repeatedly is that the new paper claiming the arctic is warmer than it’s been in 44,000 years does not prove the arctic wasn’t record cold this summer.

You seem incapable of understanding the difference between those arguments.

But to answer your question….no the GISS global land+sea temperature for September doesn’t prove prove the arctic wasn’t colder than normal. Even you should be able to figure out that the temperature of the earth over a one month period can’t be used to prove or disprove anything about a region for an entire season. Sheesh.

“Bill Jamison says:
October 30, 2013 at 5:55 am
I never even said the arctic was the coldest on record. ”

“Bill Jamison says:
October 26, 2013 at 1:13 am
Both “coldest summer on record” and “last 100 years may be the warmest in 120,000″ can be true in this case.”

Go away Bill and Gidiot. Stupid trolls. How many times do you have to be told no one is interested, not even a little bit, in what retarded trolls like you have to say. Whatever your new obsession is, it all bullshit.

You sure do write a lot about me for someone that claims to not care. I know you care rodger. But why don’t you try posting about the topic at hand instead of me? Is that too hard to do? If you don’t like my posts please ignore them. It’s pretty simple.

But in case you haven’t figure it out by now I’m not going away.

At least we know what your obsession is rodger: it’s my posts and JG’s too.

I was low on my guess and so were you John. You didn’t mention that either. So why should I? I have updated the thread on the bet with the current information and even said that you’re looking good. Not like I’m hiding anything.

“Bill Jamison says:
October 30, 2013 at 10:49 pm
But why don’t you try posting about the topic at hand instead of me?”

Bill you dickhead, this site is called ‘Watching the Deniers”. You are a denier. That means YOU ARE THE TOPIC. Don’t like being the topic of discussion, then go away. It’s that simple. I am not obsessed about retards like you. It’s just that you keep sticking your fat nose where it’s not wanted. You are like a pesky mosquito. I also hate mosquito’s, and I will go out of my way to kill them. I will continue to hound you until you piss off. Why? Because it’s our sport. This has been explained to you so many times now, yet you still don’t get it, revealing how clueless and retarded you are. There are plenty of other sites where you will be more than welcome. Why don’t you go any play with your own folk? For a start, this site has an Australian focus to it. You don’t even live in Australia, so why do you keep posting here when it is so irrelevant to you? I live in Australia, so all the topics posted here are actually relevant to me. I have experienced first hand, the fires, the heat waves, the hottest 12 months on record. Our humour is different. The topics at hand are different. You are asleep when we are all awake. We all hate ignorant Americans. We all hate right wing loons. These are the things that unite us, and that we want to talk about. You on the other hand want to troll us, to disrupt us, to antagonise us, to talk shit. What I would be interested in why are you such a troll. Do you have a low intelligence? Are you a Republican? Are you religious? Are you this rude in person?

What I find interesting is the psychology of denial. How is it that some people are so blind to the obvious, and the techniques they use to delude themselves. Why they are obsessed on trolling? Are you able to answer any of these questions?

bottom line, i do not want you to go, with ignorance that you display claiming .the arctic circle is above 80N it is great you being here to show lurkers that a climate denying moron actually knows SFA

Your comprehension is really low John. Have you ever been tested? A reading disability maybe? Or just lack of intelligence? There must be some logical explanation!

I’ve given you links to information on what defines the arctic so you would understand that part of Baffin Island and the Arctic Ocean lie south of the Arctic Circle and therefore are outside of the arctic proper. My references to the DMI plot specifically state what they cover. So far it’s the only arctic specific climate data I’ve seen and I’ve asked you several times to provide a link to one of the “data collators” you mentioned but you keep failing to post a link. Do you have one? At this point it seems that you must not have one or else you would have posted it already.

The Arctic is a region of the planet, north of the Arctic Circle, and includes the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Baffin Island, other smaller northern islands, and the far northern parts of Europe, Russia (Siberia), Alaska and Canada.

The Arctic Circle, incidentally, is an imaginary line located at 66º, 30’N latitude, and as a guide defines the southernmost part of the Arctic. The climate within the Circle is very cold and much of the area is always covered with ice.

In the mid winter months, the sun never rises and temperatures can easily reach lows of – 50º F in the higher latitudes. In the summer months (further south), 24 hours of sunlight a day melts the seas and topsoil, and is the main cause of icebergs breaking off from the frozen north and floating south, causing havoc in the shipping lanes of the north Atlantic.

The primary residents of the Arctic include the Eskimos (Inuits), Saami and Russians, with an overall population (of all peoples) exceeding 2 million. The indigenous Eskimos have lived in the area for over 9,000 years, and many have now given up much of their traditional hunting and fishing to work in the oil fields and the varied support villages.

The first explorers of the Arctic were Vikings. Norwegians visited the northern regions in the 9th century, and Erik the Red (Icelander) established a settlement in Greenland in 982. In 1909, after numerous attempts by regional explorers, Robert E. Peary reached the North Pole.

Yes I know that most of Baffin Island lies within the arctic that’s what I keep saying that some of Baffin Island isn’t in the arctic and some of the arctic ocean isn’t in the arctic. I’ve made that clear in several posts. Did you fail to comprehend what I wrote? Should I use smaller words or more simple grammar so you can understand my posts?

You still don’t get it but then I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve never stated this summer was the coldest on record. Not once. What I’ve said repeatedly and you continue to ignore is that the paper that looked at temperatures from 2010 and before do not falsify the claim that this was the coldest summer on record.

It’s so simple that even you should be able to figure it out John but yet you can’t. Let me repeat it: A paper looking at the 100 year average temperature pre-2010 can’t indicate ANYTHING about a single season’s temperature in 2013.

Now go and read the effing link you absurd idiot, read the bloody abstract and try to work out that your idiotic premise is not only wrong, it is no different from saying the arctic being warmer over the last hundred years does not prove that pigs cannot fly when we already know they cannot, it is rhetorical garbage

read the link, read the abstract and try to work out why you are being stupid

“Bill Jamison says:
October 26, 2013 at 1:13 am
Both “coldest summer on record” and “last 100 years may be the warmest in 120,000″ can be true in this case.”

“Bill Jamison says:
October 30, 2013 at 10:56 pm
I’ve never stated this summer was the coldest on record.”

Bill, Just piss you lying, dumb fucker. You have a memory that makes a goldfish look like a genius. You are an utter disgrace. You have been proven that you can’t do simple math. You keep repeating and repeating your lie, yet it is recorded for posterity. No one is interested in what you say or your constant whining. You have already obsessively whined about your Facebook page and all sorts of other pointless and meaningless topics. Your childish antics puts a 3 year old to shame. Are you really that retarded?

Rodger are you really incapable of seeing the stupidity of your post? I quoted John.

It’s no different than if I said “hottest temperature for the day” and “record low temperature” could be both true on the same day. It’s not that I’m making either claim I’m simply stating both can be true.

Are you too much of a bozo to understand that simple statement? I mean really it’s not hard to understand. Should I use smaller words for your benefit rodger?

I’ve read the abstract. I’ve even read where the authors specifically state that the claims they made are not to be taken as applying arctic-wide. They understand that moss on Baffin Island results in a proxy for that area not the entire arctic.

Temperatures across the Arctic have been rising substantially in recent decades as a result of the buildup of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Studies by CU-Boulder researchers in Greenland indicate temperatures on the ice sheet have climbed 7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1991.

Abstract
[1] Arctic air temperatures have increased in recent decades, along with documented reductions in sea ice, glacier size, and snowcover.

Of course the DMI never made the ‘coldest summer ever’ statement, it was a misrepresentation from a blog. John was providing evidence to show that it was baloney. Then you quoted Gidiot again, trying to rebuff John. Of course, everything Gidiot has said is just trolling bullshit, and then you quote the the bullshit.

Bill, you are a complete and utter arse.

What I would like to know is how did you find this site?
Why are you are troll?
Why do you insist on showing off how retarded you are?
This site is an anathema for you. You don’t even make an attempt to he helpful or cordial. You just troll, troll, troll.

Hey John have you seen me claim the arctic hasn’t increased in temperature? And do you know that the major portion of that increase has not come during summer for the reasons listed in your SkS link?

I’m simply amazed that you’re still confused by this stuff John. You’ve been at it such a long time and you post link after link and yet you fail to comprehend even the basics.

How is that possible???

Rodger you seem to be over your head in this discussion. You might want to go back and read the posts so you can play catch up and try to add something (although that doesn’t appear likely based on your previous posts). Take your time I’m not going anywhere.

How much warming in summer? Your SkS link specifically mentioned that it’s limited by the ice and varies only slightly above freezing. It’s physics John.

Notice I didn’t make any claims about any other season. There’s no doubt the arctic is warming. I think we’re all clear on that issue.

But “the arctic is warming” doesn’t preclude this past summer from being cooler than normal or even record cold.

It’s like you’re saying “the last 10 years have been hot so yesterday couldn’t have been cold”. There’s no logic there.

In addition you sure are making a WAY bigger deal out of this than is reasonable. So what if the arctic was cooler than average this past summer? It’s meaningless. Why are you so obsessed with trying to make it appear that it was a warm summer when it wasn’t? The DMI chart is clear: it was cooler than average. Maybe you can find a year that had a cooler summer based on the DMI data. If so please provide a link.

Why can’t it John? What prevents it from being a record cold summer? It was below average that’s clear. If it could be below average then what prevents it from being record cold for a couple of months?

Can you show a year that was colder based on the DMI data?

Dude seriously…let go of your anger. It’s just the Internet. What we post here isn’t worth stroking out over.

Can you provide a link to a “data collator” for only arctic temperature this past summer?

No? Well of course I didn’t expect you could!

I am laughing at the fact that you want to use the part of the arctic ocean that is outside of the arctic circle – and therefore isn’t in the arctic! – as proof that the arctic couldn’t have been record cold this past summer.

See John that’s the difference between me and you. I already knew where the arctic is. I didn’t need to link to nsidc to define like you did. But even then you seem incapable of understanding that it’s the area north of the arctic circle which means that part of Baffin Island and part of the Arctic Ocean are outside of the arctic.

Bill Jamison says:
November 1, 2013 at 12:06 am
See John that’s the difference between me and you. I already knew where the arctic is. I didn’t need to link to nsidc to define like you did. But even then you seem incapable of understanding that it’s the area north of the arctic circle which means that part of Baffin Island and part of the Arctic Ocean are outside of the arctic.

The Arctic is a region of the planet, north of the Arctic Circle, and includes the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Baffin Island, other smaller northern islands, and the far northern parts of Europe, Russia (Siberia), Alaska and Canada.

The Arctic Circle, incidentally, is an imaginary line located at 66º, 30’N latitude, and as a guide defines the southernmost part of the Arctic. The climate within the Circle is very cold and much of the area is always covered with ice.

In the mid winter months, the sun never rises and temperatures can easily reach lows of – 50º F in the higher latitudes. In the summer months (further south), 24 hours of sunlight a day melts the seas and topsoil, and is the main cause of icebergs breaking off from the frozen north and floating south, causing havoc in the shipping lanes of the north Atlantic.

The primary residents of the Arctic include the Eskimos (Inuits), Saami and Russians, with an overall population (of all peoples) exceeding 2 million. The indigenous Eskimos have lived in the area for over 9,000 years, and many have now given up much of their traditional hunting and fishing to work in the oil fields and the varied support villages.

The first explorers of the Arctic were Vikings. Norwegians visited the northern regions in the 9th century, and Erik the Red (Icelander) established a settlement in Greenland in 982. In 1909, after numerous attempts by regional explorers, Robert E. Peary reached the North Pole.

and most of baffin is within the arctic circle that is why the paper refers to the arctic

Yes I know that most of Baffin Island lies within the arctic that’s what I keep saying that some of Baffin Island isn’t in the arctic and some of the arctic ocean isn’t in the arctic. I’ve made that clear in several posts. Did you fail to comprehend what I wrote? Should I use smaller words or more simple grammar so you can understand my posts?

Okay so the glaciers on Baffin Island are in arctic even though not all of the island is. Got it. So do you believe those glaciers serve as a proxy for temperature for the entire arctic for the last 40,000 to 120,000?

try to comprehend the abstract, your question is just a stupid diversion

It is taken as given that the entire arctic has warmed a lot over recent decades and you even agree with that

your premise is crap, meaningless nonsense

there are many studies on the fast arctic warming over the past hundred years, this paper acknowledges that and would reference that, it then looks at part of the arctic going back a lot further in time.

you are a prize tool , you have gone from implying that the baffin ice cores are not in the Arctic circle so are irrelevant to okay they are in the arctic circle but are still irrelevant but then you accept that DMI does not cover the whole Arctic ocean within the arctic circle but somehow in your mind that is relevant,

and i see that you also consider yourself an expert on dendrochronology,

Didn’t you get the message that it’s called “Climate Change” now dummy?

Get with the program.

You keep trying to argue points that are irrelevant to the post. The claim – one which I didn’t make – was that this was the coldest summer on record in the arctic. I didn’t look at the data but I’m pretty sure it was based on DMI data which IIRC only goes back to 1955.

Do you have ADD or ADHD John? You seem to have a problem staying focusing and keeping on topic.

John you seem like a really angry little man. Have you considered getting professional help?

I clearly stated what DMI covers and I also clearly stated that the arctic ocean isn’t completely above the arctic circle. The DMI data clearly shows that this was a cooler than average summer. I’m glad you agree. As I’ve told you a couple of times I’ve never claimed this summer was record cold in the arctic. All I’ve ever said is that the paper you keep referring to doesn’t mean the arctic couldn’t have been record cold this summer. Yes the arctic is warming, we agree on that. But warming doesn’t mean you can’t have a record cold summer anywhere and that includes the arctic. It’s so simple yet you try to make it out to be more than it is.

Let go of your anger John it will eat you up. Do some reading and try to relax. Maybe go for a walk or something. You really do spend WAY too much time posting on message boards.

Have you checked your blood pressure lately? Old guys need to be careful you know. Especially angry old men. If you’re not careful you’ll have a stroke.

So you think that some of the arctic ocean not in the arctic was warm so therefore it couldn’t be a record cold year?

Do I have it now?

Any basis for this belief?

Unlike rodger who probably had too many already you should have a drink and mellow out John. Strokes are not pretty and you might never be able to type again if you stroke out. Then how would this blog survive?

C’mon John I already told you it’s solar radiation and warm sea water that is mostly responsible for arctic sea ice melt. Is that really the best you can do? I asked a simple question and yet you can’t answer it. If you don’t know of any “data collators” that provide arctic temperature by season then how can you claim it was or wasn’t record cold?

So far all we have is DMI. That chart clearly shows it was below average this summer. Do you agree?

I’m glad you’re going out you really need to spend more time away from the computer before you fry your brain and have a stroke.

From your link John “Most commonly, scientists define the Arctic as the region above the Arctic Circle”

That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Part of Baffin Island and part of the Arctic Ocean lie outside of the arctic proper. Not really a difficult concept for most people but you seem incapable of grasping it.

More importantly it has nothing to do with what we’ve been discussing. Of course if you don’t even understand what you’re talking about when you toss the phrase “the arctic” around then it makes sense why you make so many mistakes.

I can see why you’re getting so angry with me since I keep pointing out your areas of ignorance.

No John I just give you the data that is available. I’ve asked you repeatedly for arctic data from one of the “data collators” you referenced but you can’t provide a link. Obviously you don’t have one. So you have nothing to base your claims on.

No John I don’t keep going on about north of 80N. My only reference to that is DMI. Are you really trying to claim that the arctic wasn’t below normal because of the area that DMI references? Really? That would be a really silly claim to make but if you want to make it then please provide some data to back it up.

Of course you don’t have any so now you try to make it an issue when it’s not. Standard tactic for you.

It’s not surprising that you want to ignore the DMI data since it shows this past summer was significantly cooler than average. I can see why you have a hard time getting your head around the idea that anywhere in the world could possibly cooler than normal after you’ve been told by blog after alarmist blog that the world is warming and that it’s hotter than it’s been in 120,000 years. Cooler than normal? Of course your immediately knee-jerk reaction is not to believe it and when you are presented with data that proves it you try to discredit the data and the source of the data even though you can’t find anything to prove it wrong.

What a pathetic way to go through life. You remind me so much of young earthers that come up with ridiculous ways to ignore the proof laid out right in front of their eyes.

Your inability to even quote someone accurately explains why you are always so confused. You probably believe I actually posted the stuff you write. Maybe medication would help you see that it’s all in your head. Maybe it’s the voices in your head telling you those things because I certainly didn’t write what you claim I did.

Here’s a tip John: If you want to quote someone simply highlight it then press Ctl-C to copy then go back to your post and type a quotation mark and press Ctl-V to paste and type another quotation mark. That way when you claim to be quoting someone you will actually be quoting their words and not the voices in your head.

John I’m still saying what I’ve said right at the start: the new paper claiming the arctic is warmer than it’s been in 40,000 years (or 120,000) years doesn’t disprove the claim that the arctic was record cold this summer.

You simply can’t get past that logic. It’s no different than saying “It was cold last year so this can’t be a record warm month”. One has little to do with the other.

The DMI data is the only one that I’m aware of that shows arctic temperature. No it doesn’t cover the entire arctic circle. But unless you can reference a data set (from one of your “data collators”?) then it’s the best we have.

But, once again, I’m not the one making the claim that it was record cold. I don’t know if it was or not. I do know the DMI data CLEARLY shows this summer was below average. That’s all I know.

The problem is that you keep moving the target. You lose one point so you bring up a different one. It’s why I asked if you’ve actually been diagnosed with ADHD. You can’t seem to stay focused and post on topic.

Dear Bill . I am poor , in spite o f the fact that I work hard . The cost of living is high. Mostly because of mineral export pushing up the dollar. In spite of that I would much rather energy be priced realistically , that is including the real cost of its by- products. I would like my daughter to be able to live not fry . Thanks to people like you and your disingenuous arguments she has little hope of that .
Keep up the good work lads.

I suspect that more than a few of the deluded denialists here haven’t seen this:

In this highly entertaining and accessible presentation at the University of the West of England, George Marshall, founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network summarises some of our current understanding of the psychology of climate change- why it is so hard to accept and how can we help people to accept it?

In Part One he discusses how climate change is perfectly configured to confound our ‘risk thermostat’ and why how our response to climate is like our response to human rights abuses.

I doubt that they could watch it and actually see the scales that cover their eyes, but for the scientifically literate one thing is starkly clear – no denialist argument holds even a guttered candle to the strength of the professional science.

Most disturbing, the primary tactic of those opposed to action has not been to argue about the real costs and benefits, but to pretend that reality is not what it is. We human beings are all a little shortsighted by nature, but there is no excuse for willful ignorance, or for conscious, intellectually dishonest denial.
When science delivers a threatening forecast, action is the only responsible course. Our leaders have shown great capacity to act upon a forecast for a Superstorm in a few days’ time. We need to convince them to take the climate change forecast equally seriously.

Less dramatic, but perhaps ultimately more harmful, the coolest summers in a hundred years [time] will be hotter than even the hottest summers that have occurred in our lifetimes. This has still not sunk in. It is outside our experience, and hard to grasp. But we know these things will happen. This, too, is a confident forecast. The changes are already under way, results of human greenhouse gas emissions, and consistent with the predictions of climate scientists decades ago.

This statement is profoundly important. And perhaps understated, because it does not explicitly underscore the fact that extremes of heat will increase disproportionately to overall temperature increase, both in terms of absolute temperature extreme and in terms of frequency. for a large swathe of the planet this spells catastrophe – over, and over again…

No magic technology or clever economic “discounts” will be able to ameliorate these impacts: we are leaving a legacy for future generations no better than burying nukes under every city on the planet and setting the timers to go off randomly over the next few decades to centuries.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has asked former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty to investigate after more than 1,300 ballots went missing in the recount of the Senate race in Western Australia.

The AEC says 1,375 votes, which had been verified during the initial count, could not be “located, rechecked or verified in the recount process”.

PUP party leader Clive Palmer has already seized on the revelation to claim that the AEC is trying to deliberately rig the election.

And a constitutional law expert says the lost ballots and the tight initial result could lead to a fresh election.

This sort of fiasco is one reason why I like the traditional hard copy ballots, as unweildy as they can be. If there were electronic ballot irregularities locating the discrepancies could be even more fraught.

Presumably, many in the Coalition and its supporters will respond with the sentiment that “they would say that”. Yes, the Authority was established by Labor and is one of the many climate change organisations that have been or will be abolished by the Abbott Government.

But a 177-page report by a body headed by a former Reserve Bank governor (Bernie Fraser) and that includes the chief scientist (Ian Chubb) and the former head of the employer lobby the Australian Industry Group (Heather Ridout) is not so easily dismissed. Its conclusions would have presented a challenge to the Rudd government as well, if it had remained in office, given that it had committed to no more than the same 5 per cent target for 2020.

“We show that water masses linked to North Pacific and Antarctic intermediate waters were warmer by 2.1 ± 0.4°C and 1.5 ± 0.4°C, respectively, during the middle Holocene Thermal Maximum than over the past century. Both water masses were ~0.9°C warmer during the Medieval Warm period than during the Little Ice Age and ~0.65° warmer than in recent decades. ”

How many joules does it take to increase that much water by ~0.65°C? RealClimate and SkS made a big deal out of the 0.06-0.09°C increase over the last 30 years!

Pretty shocking to read that the North Pacific was 2.1 ± 0.4°C warmer during the HTM. That’s a lot of energy stored!

So we should ignore the actual ocean temperature and the fact that it was substantially warmer during the HTM and MCO and instead be worried that it’s warming faster? Even though by faster you mean 0.09°C in 30 years?

John “Ignore the fact that it 2.1°C warmer all that matters is that it has warmed 0.09°C in the last 30 years!”

By my calculations it will take about 700 years to reach the temperature seen during the HTM!

BTW John it wasn’t your “failure to read about monthly base lines” is was about understanding something so basic. I even gave you links that explained it yet you still tried to claim I was wrong. I spoon fed you the data with cites and you still didn’t get it. Your mind is so closed that you refuse to see the truth even when it’s right in front of you.

This argument that “it happened in the past, therefore” is perhaps the most illogical of all yours. You are failing to take into account more than I care to mention. I will use an analogy to demonstrate.

People died of lung cancer before cigarettes were invented therefore smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer.

Yet again, you have demonstrated that people like you can only handle simple ideas and try to apply them to a very complex system, so congratulations.

Like I did with the idiotic Eric, I have been keeping tab of how many typical denier memes you have spouted since you came here and out of the 100 top memes listes at SkS, this one takes you to 20. Well done. You aren’t quite in his league though so you have more work to do. Perhaps if you spent less time repeating the same one or two over and over and over again you can up your tally. I’m already using him as a case study with my students and I’d like to use you. I need a good example of a typical concern troll and you are pretty good at it. Just a few more silly slip-ups would be great, thanks.

Tell us Bill, are you a product of, or subscribe to, the the concept put forward by
the Republican Party of Texas which wrote into its 2012 platform as part of the section on education:

“Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

No Gregory I’m not a student and I don’t live in Texas so I have no link to any of that.

Do you? Does anyone here? You’re right it would explain a lot if some of the regulars were a product of that type of education! It’s obvious some here are lacking any level of high level thinking skills.

Interesting Bill, I didn’t ask if you were a student or if you lived in Texas. I asked if you subscribed to the concept. Once again you moved to distance yourself, by directing the subject elsewhere. Your good at that, but then again, critical thinking isn’t your thing is it.

As seen in much recent discussion of recons using sediment cores, these caveats as expressed by Mike Mann about conclusions from core tops are uncontroversial:

“One complication with their comparison is that the dramatic warming of the past half century is not evident in the various sediment data analyzed in the study. “Modern” conditions conditions are typically defined by the “tops” of the sediment core obtained by drilling down below the ocean bottom. But sediment core tops are notoriously bad estimates of “current” climate conditions because of various factors, including the limited temporal resolution owing to slow sediment deposition rates, and processes that mix and smear information at the top of the core. Core tops for these reasons tend not to record the most recent climate changes. Thus, the researchers’ data do not explicitly resolve the large recent increases in temperature (and heat content). But if the warming of the past half century is not resolved by their data, then the assumption that those data can be registered against a common modern baseline (the authors use a reference period of 1965-1970) too is suspect. That registration is critical to their conclusion that modern heat content has not exceeded the bounds of the past two millennia.”

And when you look at the extensive documented glacial retreat on both sides of the Atlantic [and throughout the world], it cannot be concluded that the Atlantic, or the global ocean, was warmer then. Quite the opposite.

Current glacial retreat has in many places exposed organic perishables much older than the MWP: it could not have been exposed then.

Actually Gregory you asked if I was “a product of” which I took to me a student that study under that concept. How else could I be a product of it? I don’t have any connection to it and I’m not familiar with it so I couldn’t possibly support it.

Your comparison with lung cancer fails at the first hurdle. Smoking increases the risk of lung cancer by 20 to 40 times as compared to those who don’t smoke. The results of introducing tobacco to Europe are easily measured and are unequivocable.

If CO2 increased the incidence of warming by a similar margin, you’d have a case. But alas….

Mike used his trick to hide the decline in the data he was using. Then others proposed doing likewise to hide their own declines. If you rely on your usual sources on this you’ll remain badly informed. Better to read Montford to understand this one.

Phil Jones’ words: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Of course “the decline” he was referring to was the divergence of proxy temps from instrument measurements often referred to as the “divergence problem”. It’s called “Mike’s [Mann] Nature trick” because Mike Mann used it in a paper published in the journal Nature.

sure you did, because out of your concern for context you used Phil Jones’ words which have been taken out of context, subjected to 9 independent assessments which all found they were taken out of context and that Phil Jones had no case to answer?

Phil Jones’ email is often cited as evidence of an attempt to “hide the decline in global temperatures”. This claim is patently false and shows ignorance of the science discussed. The decline actually refers to a decline in tree growth at certain high-latitude locations since 1960.

Tree-ring growth has been found to match well with temperature. Hence, tree-rings are used to plot temperature going back hundreds of years. However, tree-rings in some high-latitude locations diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. This is known as the “divergence problem”. Consequently, tree-ring data in these high-latitude locations are not considered reliable after 1960 and should not be used to represent temperature in recent decades.

The “decline” has nothing to do with “Mike’s trick”.
Phil Jones talks about “Mike’s Nature trick” and “hide the decline” as two separate techniques. However, people often abbreviate the email, distilling it down to “Mike’s trick to hide the decline”

Bill J: “Well Nick we have published science and we have Mike Mann’s opinion in a blog post. Which one carries more weight?”

The science as summarised by a practising scientist, and by the copious surrounding, contextualising evidence for the MWPs limited extent and warmth trumps a single paper, Bill. Publishing a paper is a first step. Testing comes next.

Would you like to indicate where Mann’s opinion is at variance with his fields views of core-top use?

Giddy-gids: “I was simply pointing out that Mann was attempting to discredit the paper on the same grounds that his own paper was attacked.”

Mann’s paper was NOT ‘attacked’ on the same grounds. Stop lying. A learned colleague did not discuss MBH 98 in considered tones: a conga-line of politician / shills and compromised liars misrepresented the paper, faked statistical critiques and subjected him to bullying and harassment that continues to this day.

To suggest an equivalence is really very poor. You are simply a f**kwit, Gids.

Mann pointed out some problems with this new paper IN DETAIL. There is disagreement and encouragement. I understand that some one like you, in a constant feverish mode of politicising distortion, needs to frame a discussion as an ‘attack’, but it’s getting boring. You need your head read.

And to actually read the Mann article. Go on, find out what Mann said, not what you thought he might have said. Also find out about M’s NT. Off you go.

For cryin’ out loud, you guys are just so sensitive about these issues. ohhhh someone is saying something bad about St Mike, exterminate, exterminate.

Its simple. Mann’s tree-ring data showed a decline in temps in the last part of the 20th century. Rather than show that in his graphs which would have been (mis)used by critics, he truncated the tree-ring data and superimposed thermometre data to show a rising trend. The was the trick.
Jones was refering to Briffa’s data when he talked about the decline. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a decline in Mann’s data also.
The point is that the decline in Mann’s data, while not material, meant that his data for earlier periods wasn’t fully resolved. And this is the same thing he is criticising the current paper for.

Wrong, Gids. You are wrong about what Mike Mann did in his paper with Bradley and Hughes, and the graphic used in the 1999 WMO report that Jones referred to. You are mixing up two separate things, either out of ignorance or duty. Which is it?

I suggest you search it up, admit your error, clear the air, and try and move forward.

John “The “decline” has nothing to do with “Mike’s trick”.
Phil Jones talks about “Mike’s Nature trick” and “hide the decline” as two separate techniques. However, people often abbreviate the email, distilling it down to “Mike’s trick to hide the decline”

Let me guess you copied and pasted that from SkS right?

What a crock of shit. You quoted Phil Jones. He specifically mentions using “Mike’s Nature trick…to hide the decline”. Not two separate techniques. One technique for the purpose of hiding “the decline” in the proxy temperature from certain tree rings. They truncated the proxy temperature data and appended instrumental data which is a bogus technique.

Funny thing is that they claim that tree rings can be used to discern temperature right up until they don’t without any real explanation why all of a sudden tree rings – or at least some of them – aren’t actual proxies for temperature.

Personally I’ve never had much faith in tree rings as a true temperature proxy. Obviously there are a lot of factors besides temperature that factor into growth.

this is stuffing four years ago and they still are running around like headless chooks

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.

J Giddeon says:
November 1, 2013 at 6:05 am
Mike used his trick to hide the decline in the data he was using. Then others proposed doing likewise to hide their own declines. If you rely on your usual sources on this you’ll remain badly informed. Better to read Montford to understand this one.

Is there much more that can be said by way of explanation, Giddygids and Bill? We have to keep this Groundhog day thing going, do we? Just keep explaining, despite your aversion to reality?

Mann’s [MBH] ‘trick’–just a presentation idea– as seen in MBH is to plot the instrumental data along with the recon data where they overlap. It was clearly noted as such, and is an unremarkable graphical presentation idea. MBH did not truncate any data, as did Jones and whoever drew up the WMO graphic in 1999. Muir Russell found the WMO graphic to be misleading if without footnotes, though he noted that Briffa’s data decline was discussed in the lit.. He did not find the concept of the ‘trick’ to be problematic: after all, people do it all the time in presentations in a hundred differing contexts….but you reject MR, don’t you. It was a ‘white-wash’, with ‘conflicts of interest’, just fortuitously for your stance. LOL.

You clowns are confused and/or determined to cling to a wrong narrative for your deluded cause. It’s been,what, four years since the email release? I doubt very much whether you can wipe your own bums given your inability to grasp the utter insignificance [in the sane world] of the ‘trick’.

Nick I never said the “trick” was important I just corrected the BS that John posted. Phil Jones is very clear in what he did. I understand it and I understand why he did it. I don’t necessarily agree with the idea of using proxy data only when it’s convenient without showing the inconvenient data or explaining why the proxy is no longer is valid. Do I think it is or ever was a big deal? Nope. Do I believe it shows some of the limitations of certain proxies? Absolutely. Do I think instrumental data should be grafted onto proxy data the way it was done for the WMO cover graphic? Absolutely not.

Interesting to think that the oceans were so much warmer 8,000 years ago and recent papers indicate the strong correlation between ocean water temperature in the Pacific and global temperature yet some want to believe it’s warmer now than it was 8,000 years ago. Imagine how much greater the OHC was 8,000 years ago with the water that much warmer.

No John it’s not a false claim. If you can parse a sentence then it’s easy to see that what I posted is true and accurate:

Phil Jones: ““I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

So Phil Jones added instrumental data to the proxy series and he truncated Briffa’s tree ring proxy data series after 1961 to “hide the decline”. Not a big deal but charts definitely need to clearly indicate proxy data versus instrumental data.

It’s not like this is difficult to understand. It’s clear what he did and why he did it and it’s not a big deal or important. The only issue I have is with the idea of discarding proxy data when it doesn’t support your data without justifying it. If tree ring data is a proxy for temperature up until 1981 and then suddenly it isn’t then scientists need to explain why it changed and how they know it. Otherwise the entire proxy is called into question.

I do have to laugh at how you’re so interested in possible blog rule violations all of sudden but of course only one specific rule, not the rest of them – which you constantly violate.

Remember how you wanted to talk about how CO2 will reach 1120ppmv in 2120 at this rate of growth? Why is it okay for you to make that claim but it’s not okay to take the current rate of warming and extrapolate how long it will take for the oceans to warm to the level they were ~8,000 years ago? I don’t know how fast the oceans will warm in the future any more than you know how fast CO2 emissions will rise in the future. But you think it’s okay for you to make a claim based on taking the current rate of growth and projecting how long it will take CO2 to double a second time but not do the same thing to project warming of the oceans.

So we can only use use current rate of change when it’s convenient huh?

Wow you really do want to change the subject don’t you? I’m not sure that the shooting at LAX fits on this blog but if you want to discuss you could at least start a new thread instead of trying to deflect attention away from your hypocrisy.

I think we all understand your position John. Using projections is okay when the results fit your ideology and isn’t okay when it doesn’t. Typical of a Right-Wing Authoritarian type person.

Bill might consider that it we are now approaching Holocene optimum atmospheric temperatures as reconstructed from NH proxies…and that oceans take a little longer to warm for obvious reasons. We know we are approaching Holo optimum air temps because of extensively documented glacial observations, like the exposure of Otzi [5300 years old] and Roman artefacts in Schweiz…Alpine and sub-Arctic glacial retreat is routinely exposing organic material that was not exposed in the MCA or RCA…I mention this a lot, because few seem to grasp the implications of these direct observations. Lots of stuff went under ice 4 to 5.5k years back and has not emerged until now. Or longer, much longer: “The oldest carbon dates were a total shock to me”

Which illustrates that past events are never true analogs to the current situation. Remember, the Holo optimum was part of the Milankovitch mediated long-term perturbation of climate [an increase in net high latitude insolation over a long period]…whereas nowadays we have an atmospheric compositional change [the sudden CO2 spike] which is yet to work it way through the system to a new equilibrium of responses., the Rosenthal paper needs to be seen in this context, and its comment about the rapidity of recent ocean warming is more important than its comment about the long slow decline in ocean temp since 8000 bp. So perhaps MCA [MWP] high latitude NH ocean was warmer than present, but regional air temps no higher or even a little lower, as recons of air temp generally argue….and the present trend in OHC, and air temp, is up and not yet near any peak. We are blowing past MCA regional highs globally : look at tropical and sub-tropical glaciers.

So, a bit of lagging ocean temp is to be expected when the forcing change is so rapid. And always keep in mind the distinction between ECS and TCS.

Really, talk about MCA/ present air temperature parity should be seen for the nonsense it is.

Most of the press has focused on the idea that the recent increase is ocean temperature is unprecedented and that it’s rising 15 times faster than previously. Interesting to see what the authors actually say:

BRAD: We have fossils that have been bioturbated … we have pretty high accumulation rates, but we don’t have annual resolution .. You could say that we probably have century-scale resolution at best… It’s possible that the sediments just didn’t record similar warmings in the past.”

YAIR: The deep ocean tends to average and smooth the record … I think it’s fair to say that it’s unlikely that very rapid changes on the order of, let’s say, years or even decades … would show up in the record.”

Reading the article, the authors of the paper are actually quite interested in that recent rapidity, Bill.

If “it [ocean response] may buy us some time”, as lead author Rosenthal muses, we still have to get cracking. Uncertainty is not in the sign of the trend, just in short term variation.

In Australia we are going nowhere specifically because of the distorting power of coal dependence on our new leaders…they are determined to bat away reality as long as they hold office. Most of them think we are in for global cooling as likely as anything. That is not supportable by consulting the science community.

Comments like those from favored banker David Murray show just how the new order’s view is a combination of ignorance and contempt. And a willingness to misdirect.

Of course, the the new order are ‘equal-opportunity misdirectors’…there is no subject that they are not willing to simply lie about.

Yes the authors are interested in the recent rapid increase as are other scientists. The question they raise is whether their proxy can actually indicate whether that rate of increase could be detected or not. If they have only century resolution at best then it’s difficult to know for sure if it’s truly unprecedented or not.

If the current rate of warming is 15 times previous warming then it would have taken 24 thousand years to warm 2.1C instead of only 1,600 (.25C in 200 years). Doesn’t sound plausible to me especially considering how (relatively) quickly the oceans cooled that 2.1C from the peak.

it is good that they worked that out and will now work on meeting the target

“The government will meet its targets by cutting domestic emissions, building carbon sinks and buying international offsets, says the Ministry for the Environment. But Kerr says the plan is not clear. “New Zealand doesn’t have a long-term vision about how it is going to get its emissions down.”

what an idiot statement, it is only 2013 yet this troll has already declared that it will be a failure

Seems like you have a problem with the article not me. It’s right there in the beginning of the story: ” New Zealand’s carbon emissions are set to be three times as high as its target, despite the country having an emissions trading scheme.”

So if you have a problem with the conclusion maybe you should contact the author. Of course he based the claim on New Zealand’s projected emissions.

You have no problems with claims discussing projected warming – it’s only 2013 but you talk about sea level rise and temperature in 2100 – but you don’t want to hear about a projected failure to meet emission reductions?

Nice ad hom attack John. First you were posting about me posting late at night and now you’re posting because it’s the middle of the day. Why are you so interested in my personal life? Isn’t that a violation of this site’s rules???

I see you don’t like it when your own words are used against you. No surprise there. No one likes looking like a hypocrite.

at your age i was out travelling the world not sitting all alone in some little hovel playing troll on the internet, you are a sad reflection on the younger generation who you even condemn for doing exactly as yourself

25% chance that we are headed for a Grand Minimum (like the Maunder Minimum)?

The sun’s activity is in free fall, according to a leading space physicist. But don’t expect a little ice age. “Solar activity is declining very fast at the moment,” Mike Lockwood, professor of space environmental physics at Reading University, UK, told New Scientist. “We estimate faster than at any time in the last 9300 years.”

Lockwood thinks there is now a 25 per cent chance of a repetition of the last grand minimum, the late 17th century Maunder Minimum, when there were no sunspots for 70 years. Two years ago, Lockwood put the chances of this happening at less than 10 per cent (Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1029/2011JD017013).

Of course we don’t know what impact, if any, it will have global temperature. Maybe it will help suppress warming for a couple of decades giving us time to reduce emissions before they result in catastrophic warming.

It’s an interesting article. You don’t find it fascinating that solar activity is dropping at the fastest rate in 9300 years? I do!

Pretty silly to claim we know what the impact will be. Models can project the impact but only time will tell if they are correct. Even if that article is accurate and the result is a 0.3C lowering of global temperature that means future warming will be delayed by 15 years or more. That’s a significant amount of time to further reduce GHG emissions.

While Mike Mann and Gavin Schmidt estimated that the Maunder Minimum had a “small” impact on global temperature of 0.3 to 0.4C they also say it leads to significantly colder winters in the northern hemisphere:

We examine the climate response to solar irradiance changes between the late 17th-century Maunder Minimum and the late 18th century. Global average temperature changes are small (about 0.3 to 0.4C) in both a climate model
and empirical reconstructions. However, regional temperature changes are quite large. In the model, these occur primarily through a forced shift toward the low index state of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation as solar irradiance decreases. This leads to colder temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere continents, especially in winter (1 to 2C), in agreement with historical records and proxy data for surface temperatures.

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

I’ll happily retract if you did not in fact attribute those words to Carter in the context they were being thrown around. I have too many tabs open and too little time to bother with checking for myself – after all, I’m only following the example of another who said “…I don’t intend to go trawling back…”

That said, you yourself did make a very explicit statement about old-growth forest between Hobart and Launceston:

In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not?.

Quite a few of Anthony’s readers say they have unsubscribed from National Geographic because they find it too hard to accept (and probably too difficult to read) articles about climate change. That seems to be in line with research that shows that the conservative brain is hyper-sensitive to fear. Who wants to be living in perpetual fear? It’s debilitating. That’s one of the main reasons why sites like WUWT are so popular. It exists as a placebo for people who are scared; telling fearful people not to worry because “all the science is wrong”.

Some of you might remember how back in August 2013, Anthony Watts protested an article in National Geographic about rising sea levels. Anthony seemed to believe that ice doesn’t melt as it warms.

I really don’t understand the mentality that it’s better to pretend that if one ignores or denies it the problem won’t exist. It really must be magical thinking to follow this route of dealing with issues. That probably explains why fundamentalist religiosity also predominates in this cohort.

The consequences of global warming should scare people, but the consequences of not acting should scare them far, far more.

joseph gidiot “In the early 1800′s, it was possible to drive a horse and cart from Hobart to Launceston even though there were no roads, but instead just open grass land and open wooded areas due to the regular burning. Now these areas are considered old-growth forest which the Greens are determined to protect.

You dodged and weaved about the accuracy of your claim, so perhaps you’d like to revisit it in light of your demands of others. So…

Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are “old-growth”? Which “forests” between Hobart and Launceston are being targeted for protection by those “determined” Greens, whether “old-growth” or not

Well boys, its time to go. Got a new contract which will take up much more of my time and in terms of things I can afford to give up, this is top of the list.

You won’t believe it but, apart from gathering information on Australian warmist sites, when I first came here I seriously wanted to engage in robust debate to hone my understanding and find information that I might have missed. It seemed there were at least some people here who were rather knowledgeable about some aspects of the CC issue.

To be sure there were the usual children who, freed of the normal constraints of society, indulge the inner savage. Comments suggesting that my wife was a sex toy, that I slept with (in the biblical sense) my mother or that my conception was the result of my father co-joining with a mule, wouldn’t be tolerated in most places not even most blogs I’ve visited. But here its was par for the coarse which reflects on the blog, the owner, the perpetrators and those who, through tribalism, condoned it.

What we’ve discovered is that this isn’t a place where people discuss CC, its a place where people come to be reassured that they are right to continue to believe in CC. As the whole CAGW fairy-tale crumbles, it must be comforting for the group to escape the real world and commune with those who equally refuse to think about the new information. That is why we have the outraged attacks on those who come here with a differing view. The Dodgy’s and JB’s of this world just need to have their growing doubts soothed by like-minded people and when that is denied to them, they lash out in extraordinary fashion.All this is presumably in response to the depression that alarmism causes.

To be sure, there are some who are quite knowledgeable about some aspects of the issue and can regurgitate with due alacrity whatever RC or SkS have told them to think. The easiest example of this is the comforting view that there is no hiatus despite the fact that so many consensus scientists are researching and/or pondering it. Incredibly (or not) the entire group have just mutually decided to buy into the story that the warming is in the oceans as decreed by the aforementioned RC/SkS. The lack of evidence for this wouldn’t be tolerated in other issues (as we’ll see when we get responses to a SL article I posted today) but here, it is an article of faith to the point that it becomes verboten to dispute it.

To maintain a semblance of reverence for the facts, the group routinely picks out the most mundane of issues to vent about, allowing them to avoid the substance of an issue.

I guess the final straws were to see Nick, who I held some hope for despite his vaguely trotskite rants, join the ranks of the witless abusers. Then to finally find that posts were retrospectively altered is just beyond the pale. It just shows that a spectacular disrespect for any of the norms permeates the blog, and the lengths they’ll go to to ‘win’. Even the Hockey Team would be embarrassed.

So I post no more although I will keep an occasional fatherly eye out to chart the rationalisations made by the group as the CAGW theory dissolves.

I’m aware that this post may well be ‘edited’ away as have other embarrassing posts so I’ll keep a copy and post it over at watchingthewatchersofdeniers if needs be. They’ll enjoy the laugh.

You won’t believe it but, apart from gathering information on Australian warmist sites, when I first came here I seriously wanted to engage in robust debate to hone my understanding and find information that I might have missed.”

No, we don’t believe it. ‘Australian warmist sites’ <- This is the inflammatory and prerogative Orwellian language of deniers, like 'alarmist', or "Untermenschen' used by the Nazi's, and is a 'tell' of a denier. For a start this is not a 'warmist' site. It's a 'Watching the Deneirs' site, where people who accept science can converse with each other and share relevant information, and point out and have a bit of a laugh at the foolishness of deniers.

'I first came here I seriously wanted to engage in robust debate to hone my understanding and find information that I might have missed.' <- That was his first mistake. We are actually not here to 'engage in robust debate'. The scientific debate in climate science was over in the 1980's. If he really wanted to find information, Wikipedia, or the IPCC reports is where he should have started. Methinks this is just code for trolling. There was no intent of good-will or charity, he is just a depraved psychopath who's only aim was to be as disruptive and cruel natured as possible. Your typical troll. Google Scibaby.

"But here its was par for the coarse which reflects on the blog, the owner, the perpetrators and those who, through tribalism, condoned it." <- It's what happens to trolls. He was told numerous times to piss off, so the level of anti-troll thrashing was stepped up. Most trolls would have given up, but this pernicious troll was totally obsessed and hopelessly addicted. Very common behaviour of trolls.

"What we’ve discovered is that this isn’t a place where people discuss CC, its a place where people come to be reassured that they are right to continue to believe in CC. As the whole CAGW fairy-tale crumbles, it must be comforting for the group to escape the real world and commune with those who equally refuse to think about the new information." <- No one here believes in AGW. It's a scientific fact. Also no one here beleives in the 'CAGW fairy-tale'. The CAGW term is also another part of the language of deniers. It is a straw man term, designed to create an atmosphere of hyper-realism, to perpetrate that the science is 'alarmist'. To create an enemy, like in the cold war. It is the monochromatic world-view, the 'reds under the bed' fear technique that conservatives have used for decades.

"All this is presumably in response to the depression that alarmism causes."
And then a notrickzone blog link. Disgraceful and heinous. This is the projectionist feeling that deniers are trying to sooth. A lot of research has shown that the conservative brain is hypersensitive to fear and loathing.

"The easiest example of this is the comforting view that there is no hiatus". <- The obsessive deniers favourite meme. Like it's a gotcha that instantly dissolves AGW. How many times was this explained to him, but obviously still never got it as his is still ruminating over it. No one here denies the 'hiatus', it has happened before, and will happen again. There are cycles when heat is absorbed by the oceans and then later released, the ENSO cycle. The 'hiatus' is just noise in the system and is meaningless.

"To maintain a semblance of reverence for the facts, the group routinely picks out the most mundane of issues to vent about, allowing them to avoid the substance of an issue." <- That's because he would continually lie and distort. We actually want to talk about the substance of the thread topic, but he would go on a crazy rant session, based on his viciously extremist views, full of bullshit and lies. That sort of behaviour will not stand, and will be stamped on immediately. Besides, didn't he say he wanted robust debate. Well that's what he got.

" I will keep an occasional fatherly eye out" <- What an old fashioned prick. May I suggest that you don't, as part of your therapy.

" the CAGW theory dissolves."<- There is no CAGW theory. What an obsessive prick. There is AGW theory though that has been around for over 150 years and because it is based on the eternal and universal laws of physics, it will never disappear.

You can see, even in his parting shots, what a complete and utter arsehole he was, and I for one is glad he is gone. A well deserved toast and gloat is in order.

Just one parting gift. The last but one person to be banned from here was a poster called Mark. He was booted out for pointing out that one of Mike’s posts asserted the exact opposite of a post a month or two earlier. The reasons for the banning were completely spurious and were devised to hide the evidence of Mike’s and the group’s complete misunderstanding of the available data. And All that Jazz.

Reality check says:
February 10, 2013 at 8:25 pm
I made climate scientists a special group because this is a list of the aspects of anthropomorphic climate change beliefs. My use of the term “climate scientist” is used in the same way believer’s blogs use the term: people who publish in peer-reviewed journals. References to the 97% agreement, etc are based on the scientists who publish.

There is no lack of understanding of the Scientific method here. This post is addressing the “rational” presented on the Watching the Deniers blog and their “Six Aspects of Denial”. It is not irony, though it could qualify as satire if the subject were not so serious.

mark says:
July 9, 2013 at 7:34 pm
john byatt said “the deniers conspiracy theories cover everything from the one world government…”

Maybe that’s because we’ve read things like the following:

“Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the German Chancellor’s deindustrialization council, WBGU, said in Frankfurt yesterday that, unfortunately, the global climate problems cannot be solved globally, because, for that one needs to have a global government, which does not exist. He said that he very much regrets that it does not exist.”

“The ultimate objective of the parties of the Socialist International is nothing less than world government.”

> When making any claim (scientific or otherwise) provide references (links if possible) for others to evaluate your argument/s – repeated failure to do so may result in disciplinary action
> Avoid “Gish Gallops”: long posts with multiple claims not supported by evidence – repeated failure to do so may result in disciplinary action

You’ve breached two of the guidelines in that post, please be more specific Mark.

Michael the Realist says:
October 22, 2013 at 11:26 pm
Rubbish. What you do, if you are a realist, is look at the trends. Facts are that the globe is at its highest temperatures in thousands of years, after a long consistent upward trend in temps for over 100 years. Culminating in the current period which is the hottest decade since instrumental records began. After 60 years where natural factors have produced a net slight cooling effect, global temps have risen 0.6 deg c (0.8 f).

This has produced record melting in the Arctic, glaciers and global sea ice volume. Rising sea levels twice as high in last 30 as previous 100. Ocean warming, especially to the deeper layers due to recent back to back la ninas and pdo cycles. Extreme precipitation up 7% pdegree according to actual observational records. hot day records breaking cold ones by 3 to 1 and night records 5 to 1. Ocean ph fallen by 30%. Extreme weather on the rise, especially droughts and floods etc etc.

So 2003 record breaking heat wave through europe, russia in 2010, us in 2012 and Australia in 2013. Currently last 12 months hottest on record, hottest winter, hottest day, month etc. This will result in more bushfires and other associated issues with hotter weather. Actions have consequences. It is only October, not even summer, and the bushfires are unprecedented. Put your ideological beliefs or greed to the side and put reality and people firs, open your eyes, people are suffering and it is deniers fault. We have been warned by scientists since the 80′s and this could have been prevented.

Reply
Reality check says:
October 22, 2013 at 11:40 pm
If you’re a realist and understand statistics, you realize just how much manipulation there has been in the data and the tacky statistical methods.

The bushfires are because of TOO MUCH FUEL. Try researching what makes fires burn. If it’s 110 degrees and there’s no fuel, there’s no fire. It is, as you say, simple physics.

I left the link you put in as I want people to see what both sides are up to. I in no way agree with the activity.

John-
Greenhouse effect: I find no reason not to believe CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, though I do find the term itself awkward and not very accurate. CO2, along with many other factors, affects the temperature of the planet.

Human influence: Of course I think humans have influence. I’d be very foolish if I discounted the effects of habitat change, air pollution, etc. Everything has an effect on the planet. I do not believe that humans are a threat to the planet, nor are their activities.

Climate sensitivity: to what? CO2? I believe that sensitivity, CO2/temperature, is a logarithmic function, which would mean that as CO2 concentration increases, the effect lessens. Didn’t the IPCC revise its estimate of CO2 sensitivity recently?

Actually, if you remove the “catastrophic” part of climate change and look at the actual data, I’m probably not too far parted. Most of my objection is to the politicalization of the science and the demands for changes in lifestyles that don’t seem to be proportional to the actual science.

Actually, it does not have to run through all five sets, unless I was claiming a conspiracy, which I’m not. As far as I am aware, most, if not all “corrections” are upward for current data, downward for the past data. I cannot provide links at the moment–but will try to address this on my blog. I’ve covered some of the problems with the statistics used on my own blog–and the limitations of graphing. The length of the data set, the statistical method used, etc. all affect the outcome. There are continual accusations of “cherry picking” from both sides, which would indicate choice of data and range is very important. I have links on my blog to articles on statistics and trend lines on graphs. I have an open thread right now, so if you wish, you can jump over there and we can continue. I’m a bit short on time, so please forgive me if a take a bit to answer.

You are certainly entitile to your belief that humans threaten other species and themselves. As far as I can see, natural selection is working just fine so I am not concerned.
As for the CAGW, you asked what I believed. I am aware that this has been toned down. Actually, I believe James Hansen continues to be rather vocal on this. It’s not tied to any paper, but he is a climate scientist making statements publicly.
As noted in my next comment, I am not really able to continue here due to tiime constraints. My apologies.

You are certainly entitile [sic] to your belief that humans threaten other species and themselves.

It’s not a “belief”.

Ask a dodo, or a thylacine, or a passenger pigeon, or a gastric brooding frog, or a mountain gorilla, or a Steller’s sea cow, or a rhinoceros, or an Atlantic cod, or a Queen of Sheba’s gazelle, or a moa, or a Haast’s eagle, or a sea mink, or…

Humans are a threat to hundreds of thousands of species, and quite likely to millions if we keep up with BAU carbon emissions until the middle of the century.

As far as I can see, natural selection is working just fine so I am not concerned.

That’s the trouble. You can’t see. Not rationally, not scientifically.

But yes, natural selection is working, and over the next few millennia the mal-adapted aggression, selfishness and unmoderated technophilia of humans will exert a powerful pressure on our species. It will likely be akin to Easter Isalnd, just writ a little larger.

As for the CAGW, you asked what I believed.

See (or not…), once again there’s the problem…

Your “belief” diverges from the science. You convince yourself otherwise, but that doesn’t change the reality.